


The Return

by General_Nerdy



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Game Spoilers, Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 09:55:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5864746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/General_Nerdy/pseuds/General_Nerdy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Knight Davis survives her mission into the Institute, but the Brotherhood, and Danse, are concerned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Return

**Author's Note:**

> **_For if you're still accepting Danse prompts...What happens when Sole returns from the Institute the first time? (Pre-romanced, but they're still very close to eachother?)_ **
> 
> I'm very pleased with how this piece turned out!

It had been several hours since Knight Davis had been ported through the Signal Interceptor, and the Brotherhood had no way of knowing her status. Ingram had assured them the device had worked and the Knight was now in enemy territory, so at least Davis hadn’t been ripped apart on the platform. That was hardly comforting however; Paladin Danse paced back and forth, giving anxious glances towards the crackling relay. Sure Knight Davis had known the risks but he was still concerned for her safety. They’d sent her to the Institute completely blind. Who knew what kind of opposition she might have run into? What if she was a prisoner at this very moment?

Elder Maxson stood close by, flanked by several other knights as they waited in silence. You could never be too careful with the Institute; they had the potential to send back a nasty surprise through their improvised teleporter. He didn’t want to say anything to his Paladin quite yet, but if the Knight didn’t show up soon he would assume she was MIA. Maxson would wait a bit longer though. Their Knight possessed the tenacity to clear Fort Strong, kill an Institute Courser and build the device before them. Therefore, she could handle herself solo, or so he chose to believe.  

“It’s been a few hours,” Danses gaze switched to the Elder, his brows drawn low. “Elder, with your permission I’d like to-“

“Denied Paladin,” Maxson cut him off. “We’ll give Knight Davis a bit more time. Even in the event she has been compromised, I would rather only risk one casualty instead of two.”

He understood but still clenched his jaw in frustration. Maybe if they had built two platforms instead of one Danse could have gone with her, watched her back. During the construction Davis had explained to him why that wouldn’t work, but the thought helped ease the guilt of him not contributing much at all to such a dangerous operation. Danse wasn’t used to feeling so helpless and it was eating him up inside. Davis had been doing so many amazing things as of late and it was like he was standing on the sidelines. The Paladin kneaded the knuckles of his armor together, a nervous tic.

Suddenly, the platform whirred into life yet again, raining sparks and electricity around it. Ingram was leaning in close to the console, calling out numbers. “-dred and ten, no twenty percent! If it gets any higher, it’ll blow and I can’t stop it!” The Knights moved in a protective circle around the Elder to shield him from whatever was going on and Danse stood at the forefront, looking into the blue flashes emanating from the Interceptor. They were the same as when the Knight had left.

“Shut it down!” Maxson yelled over the interference. Had the Institute sabotaged the device from their end? The Elder didn’t want to imagine what kind of damage they could cause.

“Wait!” Danse bellowed. “Don’t turn off the device!”

The Elder objected just as heatedly but was drowned out by the high pitched whirrs of the teleporter. Links in the tower began to groan and snap, wires breaking free and sparking. Just as abruptly as it started it was over, the console beeping with numerous warnings, the dish powered down and the platform a smoking scrapheap. As the smoke cleared however, a form emerged to step down.

Knight Davis.

The squad guarding the Elder held their weapons at the ready, wary of what or whomever the Institute had sent them back. It certainly looked like Knight Davis, but her expression was vacant. She stared right through everything in front of her and didn’t register all the men and women ordering her to drop her weapon. Danse ignored the chaos and waved the smoke out of the way as he approached her, resting a hand on her pauldron. “Knight?! Knight is that you?!” Her eyes turned ever so slowly to him, still empty. Davis jolted and let out a shocked cry before scrambling out of her armor, collapsing onto her hands and knees and emptying her stomach onto the concrete.

Before Danse could kneel down by her he was pulled away by the squad of Knights, their rifles pointed at Knight Davis as Maxson approached her. He stood over her, his eyes hard. “The code, Knight.”

Paladin Danse wanted to scream. Why were they pointing their weapons at her?! It was Knight Davis! But at he looked at the other Knights, their fingers itching on the triggers the reality of the situation dawned on him. It was more than probable that the Institute had replaced Davis while she was away. His stomach sank and he stared at the woman panting on the ground. It was Knight Davis?

It looked up, eyes examining the situation before it. “Sir,” it finally rasped after a few tense moments. “Revelation 21:6.”

Elder Maxson didn’t relax, but he didn’t order the Knights to shoot either. “Knight Davis,” he said. “I’m pleased you managed to make it back to us. However, there are some safety precautions we must undergo, you understand.”

“Yes sir,” she replied, her voice hollow. Two of the Knights stepped forward to lock their vice grips around her upper arms. A third searched her person thoroughly and the fourth kept their rifle aimed firmly at her back. When they found the network scanner holotape it was given to Proctor Ingram for immediate decrypting. Once the group was satisfied Davis carried no weapons they hauled her to the closest Vertibird to bring her aboard the Prydwen.

All the while Danse followed like a good Paladin, his mind swimming. A passcode, for Maxson to make sure he was speaking to the real Davis and not an impersonator. It would’ve been a hell of a stretch for a spy to guess something so specific as that. But the cold calculations of Maxson were bothering him a lot less than the state Knight Davis appeared to be in. The fire in her eyes was gone and her complexion ghostly pale. She was practically being carried by the Knights holding her and she offered no resistance, no indignation at not being trusted to walk on her own.

She looked defeated.

Half of the squad led her into the med bay with Knight-Captain Cade waiting with an empty bed. Maxson followed inside, but the other two knights barred entrance to the Paladin. “Sir?” Danse bristled at such an insult. He wasn’t being allowed to oversee the wellbeing of his Knight? He lost visual contact with her as Cade drew a curtain around her bed, Davis staring blankly at the floor all the while.

“I need to conduct an interview with Knight Davis regarding her mission Paladin,” Maxson stated as a matter of fact. “You certainly understand the risks we are dealing with right now. A synth might try to appeal to your history. I’m sorry Danse, but you will have to wait.”

_I don’t trust you to shoot her because you’re too close._

His jaw clenched but Danse didn’t dare allow any other emotions to show on his face. “Yes sir,” he nodded. Without another word Maxson turned away from him and disappeared behind the curtain. The guards used their size to effectively block the door, their expressions unfathomable to Danse behind their helmets. Clenching and unclenching his fists he turned to stalk the Prydwen to find something, anything to keep his mind off of what was wrong with his Knight, and what she had experienced on the other side of that teleporter to make her that way.

 

* * *

 

Hours passed, and late into the evening Danse knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep. Taking a drag on his cigarette he leaned over his desk, still wondering what had become of his Knight. He’d tried to distract himself of course; armor maintenance, deconstructing and reassembling his rifle, and reading the T-60 manual. Nothing relieved the sense of dread that pricked at the back of his mind. Davis always seemed so confident, determined in the things she did. To see her so shaken was disconcerting to say the least.

When Danse heard the knock at his door he stood immediately, opening the door and pleading with his eyes at the Knight that stood before him. “Has there been any word from Cade or the Elder?”

“Yes sir,” he replied. “They’re comfortable in the assumption that really is Knight Davis. However, the Elder still wants her under quarantine aboard the ship till further notice and Cade recommended she stay in the med bay for a bit longer.”

Danses eyebrows furrowed. “Is she injured?”

“I don’t know sir. You would have to ask Knight-Captain Cade that.” Raising his hand, he offered Danse a holotape. “The Elder has permitted you a recording of his interview with Davis, and he highly recommended you listen to it.”

He examined the tape in his hands, Danse wondering whether Maxson wanted him to listen for crucial Institute intel, or something regarding his Knight. “Thank you Knight, you’re dismissed.”

It felt like the air around him grew heavier as Danse stared at the small orange rectangle in his hand. Dread was welling up inside him at the thought of something awful being on the tape, but he owed it to Davis to listen, and to Maxson to follow orders.

So he popped the tape into his terminal and started the recording.

“This is Knight-Captain Cade, starting examination of subject recovered from the Signal Interceptor.”

Paladin Danses eyebrows rose dramatically. Jesus, they really were treating her as a potential threat; a thing, a synth. Cade continued on as he went through the basics of any Brotherhood medical exam, and also added in some other tests.

“…Blood sample provided no deviations or abnormalities from those in Knight Elena Davis’ file. Brain wave patterns are in acceptable ranges as well. The subject perfectly matches all physical aspects of Knight Davis, and since the subject has offered no resistance to these exams, I am confident in saying this is Davis.”

“Thank you Cade,” Maxsons voice began. “Leave us.” Footsteps faded out as Danse assumed the doctor exited. The skid of metal across the floor, the moving of a chair maybe, and Maxson sighed.

“Knight, I want you to tell me every single detail of your stay inside the Institute; from the moment you arrived to when you left. Everything, no matter how inconsequential you might think. The smallest details can have the biggest implications.”

“Yes Elder,” Davis replied. This was the first time Danse heard her voice in the recording so far. She’d been utterly silent through the rest of it and that concerned him. Usually Knight Davis had some kind of sly remark to slip in, but here there was nothing.

“When I arrived, I showed up in what appeared to be their… teleporter? A small room, filled with coils and other tech I didn’t recognize. It led into another lab, the controls probably. I found a terminal there and uploaded Ingrams network scanner.” She paused.

“Then I moved down some stairs ahead since the rest of the doors were locked. There-“ Her voice broke a bit as she continued. “A voice came over the intercom. He praised me for making it inside, and introduced himself as ‘Father,’ the leader of the Institute.”

“Father,” Maxson scoffed. “How conceited.”

Davis didn’t respond to his ire and continued.

“He said he wanted to speak to me, and unlocked an elevator. There was no other path forward so I took it. It lowered through the middle of their complex. It’s… huge down there, full of tech. I saw scientists, some older synths, probably newer ones too, even a courser. There were green trees and water-“

“Focus Knight. Did their leader say anything else?”

“…He said I had the wrong impression of them. They were working towards humanities survival and future. They were being misinterpreted by people above ground so they had to stay hidden. Then…” Her voice quivered.

“He said he knew I was there for my son.”

Danse burned at that. Those Institute bastards were taunting her with the thought of her missing child.

“I… I went down another hall and an elevator, and came into another room.” Her emotionless veneer was breaking; Danse could hear the pain in her words.

“There was a child in a cell, the same one I saw in Kelloggs memories. I-It was Shaun. I-“

Wait, she’d found him? Why in the hell hadn’t she brought him back with her?! Everything greyed as it occurred to Danse that the Institute might have done something to her son.

“I tried to get him out, but the door was locked. H-He didn’t recognize me, said he didn’t know me and told me to go away. Then… before I could try to get him out a man came in.” Her voice firmed back up after a deep breath, the analytical soldier tone.

“He spouted some sort of code and the child slumped over… a synth.”

**_They made a synth out of her son?_ **

Danse had to pause the recording and lean his head into his hands. Jesus Christ, no wonder Davis had seemed so out of it. It was incredible she’d held herself together so well at all. The Paladin could only imagine that in her shoes he would’ve killed someone for such a discovery. The Institute were monsters, plain and simple.

The recording started again.

“He said the child was a prototype, and his responses weren’t what they were expecting. The man was Father.”

“Can you describe him for me Davis?”

She hesitated. “…60 years old, mixed race. Grey hair and beard, around six-foot-tall, average build.”

“Thank you Knight. Please continue.”  

“I wanted to kill him,” she admitted. “But he would’ve known where my real son was. I-I’m sorry… at this point I’d forgotten the mission. I told him to give me my son. He evaded and I asked him again where Shaun was. He told me Shaun was close, but the situation was complicated.”

“Elder… I… I’m sorry. Father… he is Shaun.”

What?

_What?_

“How is that possible Knight,” Maxson asked her. “You said he was an infant when he was kidnapped.”

“I didn’t know how much time had passed in the Vault. Apparently the time from the kidnapping to me waking up was… sixty years.”

“How did he attain such a position, and why had he been taken in the first place?”

“He was taken because the Institute needed uncorrupted human DNA for their synth experiments. My husband and I… maybe we were around too much radiation during the Resource Wars, or maybe they just wanted a baby that couldn’t fight back, but… they used his DNA to help create the generation 3 synths. He grew up inside the Institute, and eventually was nominated as their leader.”

“I’m sorry Davis,” he said to her, his voice actually remorseful. “The truth doesn’t always bring happiness to our hearts.”

“Yes sir,” was all she offered back. “To be honest… I don’t feel much pity for him. From talking more with him he didn’t seem bitter about any of the circumstances of his life. He didn’t mourn his father, he used Kellogg knowing the man was a psychopath, and he had no interest in helping the people of the Commonwealth.” Her tone was indignant by the end.

“He’s not my son.”

It was Cutler and the Super Mutants all over again. Danse knew more than anyone what Davis must have been going through; he’d have to check in on her in the morning. But to have to put down her own flesh and blood, her _child_ of all things… Knight Davis was certainly resolute.

“Father wanted me to join the Institute, help them with some kind of large project. I still had to find Doctor Li… so I lied and told him yes. He gave me free reign of the facilities and I explored.”

Davis was an astounding example of a model Brotherhood soldier. She’d gone into the Institute research divisions to find out as much as she possibly could. Facilities, Bio Science, Advanced Systems, an eyewitness account of gen 3 synth production, and the “Synth Retention Bureau” as they’d put it; all parts of the enemy laid before them. Danses stomach tightened at the mention of their FEV research. Maybe that was how the mutants had found their way to the Commonwealth?

“I convinced Doctor Li to rejoin the Brotherhood, and she gave me the device I used to return here immediately after speaking with her. The Institute must have sent me through to overload the Interceptor on purpose.”

“Is Father expecting you to go back?”

“I suppose not, since I left before speaking with him again. I don’t plan on returning there until our final assault, if that’s what you’re concerned with Elder.”

“Very good,” Maxson said softly. “Knight, I’m sorry the circumstances have been less than kind to you, but I am very pleased you kept the Brotherhood at the forefront of your thoughts and actions. You have my respect. Our interview is done, but I ask you stay on the ship until further orders are given. Cade has also asked you stay the night here.”

“Yes sir.”

After that the recording came to an end, and Danse shut down his terminal. He would get up first thing to go and comfort his friend in her time of need. The poor woman couldn’t catch a break, losing more and more with every turn. As he laid his head on his pillow Danse wondered what he could even say to her to help Davis try to heal, or at least feel comforted. He fell into a troubled sleep, his expression dark.

 

* * *

 

Approaching the med bay the next day, Danse could see the curtain around Davis’ bed was still drawn. Cade scuttled about around the room performing his duties for the day. The Knight-Captain looked up when Paladin Danse knocked on the doorframe. “Ah Paladin, I was wondering when you’d stop by.” He gestured outside and down the hall a way before continuing their conversation. “I would be mindful if you’ve come to speak to Knight Davis. She’s in a very vulnerable place right now and we have no real way of knowing what she’s thinking. Hence… why I had her stay the night.”

“You’re afraid she’s a danger to herself?” Danse asked in a solemn tone.

“She’s lost her whole family Paladin; I’d imagine that would take its toll on anyone. I’ll allow you to talk to her, but if she becomes too distressed I will ask you leave.”

“I understand.”

They made their way back to the bay, Danse carefully parting the curtain to poke his head inside. Davis was dressed down into fatigues, laying in the bed with an unreadable expression. “Morning,” Danse said to her as he pulled up a chair, closing the curtain behind him.

“Sir.”

“No formalities today Davis. I am glad you made it back in one piece.” He tried to smile but it didn’t reach his eyes, still filled with concern. She sat up in bed a bit, resting her hands in her lap.

“I’m sorry to have worried you… things got complicated, but Doctor Li should be joining us shortly.”

“That’s outstanding news, and she’s already here actually. Ingram has her down at the airport.”

“I’m glad.” For once her auburn hair was down, hanging in soft locks to her shoulders and obscuring her face. Not once in their conversation yet had Davis looked at him.

The tension in the air was palpable, to Danse at least, and he knew they couldn’t avoid the elephant in the room for much longer. He had to talk about her mission.

“I… listened to your report,” he finally said. “I’m so sorry Elena.”

She gripped her blanket tightly, kneading the fabric in her fingers. “Don’t apologize Danse, you’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”

“I know that, but this is a tremendous amount for anyone to take in. I want to make sure you’re alright, and if you wanted to talk about it I’m here for-“

“What am I going to talk about Danse,” she spat, finally facing him. Her eyes were puffy and red, probably from crying through the night. They held a pain Danse couldn’t even begin to comprehend. “How I’ll have to kill my son? How he didn’t even care about his dead father?! Or how about the fake son they built to torture me? What am I supposed to say?!” Tears streamed down her face as she glared at him, rage and hurt swirling around inside her.

No words were going to help her; besides, he was horrible speaking emotionally anyway. Feelings of uselessness were settling in again and Danse hated it. He could do something, he could…

Danse stood up and steeled himself before wrapping his arms around Knight Davis, holding her close to his chest. At first she didn’t move, her arms frozen in front of her and her chest still as she held her breath. But after a few moments she broke down, tentatively moving her arms to hold him back. With a hiccup she began to sob, burying herself closer to her superior. Davis clung to him, emptying everything she’d held in since returning.

It hurt Danse to see his good friend this way, shattered after losing the last fragments of her old life. He held her for a long time before she quieted, and even longer still before he realized she had fallen asleep. Danse laid her back against the bed and covered her up. Her eyes were wet but she looked calmer, or at least too tired to continue feeling. The Paladin let her rest and returned to his duties.

In the days that followed Danse didn’t see much of his Knight, and he didn’t actively search for her. He allowed her space and time to think things over. When he finally saw her in the power armor bay, examining her plasma rifle, he was glad Davis was trying to occupy herself with something she enjoyed. He didn’t bring up her outburst or the embrace between them and when they were ready to ship out again things felt like they had returned to normal. Knight Davis bounced right back into her role, perhaps with even more gusto than before. Maybe with time he would ask her again how she was feeling, or pry to see what her thought process was… no. No he wouldn’t. She would come to him when she was ready, just like his workshop talks with her about Paladin Kreig, Cutler, Haylen…

 

   

 


End file.
